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The 23-year-old Marine got into a heated argument with the driver of a white sport utility vehicle who pulled out a gun and shot him, said Claudia Banuelos, a spokeswoman for state investigators in Chihuahua state, which includes Juarez.

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The Marine was accompanied by three other men who told authorities they were also Marines visiting Juarez for the day, Banuelos said.

Banuelos said the group had just left a nightclub and was walking in the street when the sport utility vehicle raced by, almost hitting them.

"The tourists were angry and apparently threw a glass bottle at the car, prompting the driver to get out," she said.

Mexican media named the soldier as Herbert Galvan, 23, a sergeant, who was shot apparently during an argument with the driver of a vehicle that sped away.

Chihuahua state's attorney general, Patricia Gonzalez, told the United States that authorities would "pursue vigorously those responsible," the U.S. official said.

Violent crime is common in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, where drug trafficking gangs are based.

More than 300 women have been murdered in the city since 1993 in a systematic killing spree that has largely gone unsolved.

Probably not a good place to take a date. Several years ago, Juarez was a charming place with terrific resturants and bargains on jewelry and home fixtures. The Mexican city had two of the best Chinese resturants I have experienced. Apparently the famlies who ran the resturants had originally worked on the railroad that went through El Paso. They decided to stick around. It is sad to see what the drug thugs have done to Mexico. Apparently Juarez at least has a prosecuter who acts like she wants to bring a case. That is more than you can say for Nueva Laredo. The non drug buying Americans are probably more important to the Juarez economy.

Jerusalem Post:
Russian forces blew up bridges on the Euphrates river held by Iranian militias several days ago, according to a report. This is the first time the Russians attacked Iranian targets in Syria.

The information came from a senior Syrian official who refused to be identified, and was reported in Bas News, a Kurdish news website.
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This would certainly put the Iranian operations in Syria at risk. The story does not indicate what prompted the attack. Israel has been making it clear to Syria and to Russia that it would not tolerate Iranian forces in Syria it deemed a threat to its security.

Just across the border from the U.S., drug gangs slaughtered 23 people — hanging nine from a bridge and decapitating 14 more, whose heads were found stashed in coolers near the town hall.

The four men and five women discovered dangling from the Colosio Bridge in Nuevo Laredo were handcuffed, blindfolded and bore signs of torture.

A banner hanging from the bridge claimed the victims — between the ages of 25 and 30 — had committed an April 24 car bombing outside a police station, Mexican media reported.

Hours later, the 14 headless bodies were found in black bags in a gray van parked near a trade association.

The heads were in three ice chests found three hours later.

Nuevo Laredo, on the Texas border, is the site of a vicious feud between the Zeta and Gulf cartels.

Last month, another 14 bodies were found abandoned outside the mayor's office.
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The drug cartels are fighting over access to the I-35 corridor which begins in Laredo and runs up the middle of the United…